"I'd say I probably spend 70% less time thinking about sales tax."

— Brett Goodson, Founder, Almond Cow

Industry

Kitchen Appliances & Food

Location

Georgia

Website

AlmondCow.co

Integration

Shopify

Migrating from

TaxJar and Avalara

Introduction

Complex product mix. Complex compliance.

Almond Cow created the market for DIY plant-based milk makers in the Western world. The direct-to-consumer brand sells its signature countertop appliance alongside ingredients and accessories, everything needed to make plant-based milk at home. The company sells through multiple online channels, with Shopify as its primary platform.

As the business scaled, so did its sales tax obligations. Within the first year, Almond Cow was collecting tax across dozens of states. That growth brought a compliance stack to match: an outside accounting firm, Avalara for calculations, and TaxJar for filings, with Brett filling in the gaps.

Challenge

Five years of fragmented tools and no real support.

Sales tax complexity arrived early at Almond Cow. Within the first twelve months, Brett was already working to understand where the company had established nexus, whether those thresholds were valid, and what rates applied state by state — no small task for a brand selling both appliances and food products.

As the company scaled, Brett built a compliance stack to match:

• An outside accounting firm to identify nexus
• Avalara for tax calculation
• TaxJar for filings
• Brett himself filling in wherever the tools fell short

The product mix added another layer of complexity. Almond Cow sells both physical appliances and food products, categories that are taxed differently from state to state.

The arrangement held for nearly five years. But the cost of maintaining it wasn’t just financial. TaxJar’s support model left the team largely on their own. When something broke — an auto-file issue, a missed state, or a filing quirk — Brett was the one sorting through it.

“One of those issues would probably come up every month. And it’s just such a distraction that level of focus could have been used for something else that makes money.”

Solution

One platform, responsive support, a clean transition.

Three factors drove Brett’s decision to switch:

• SST consolidation. With TaxCloud being a Certified Service Provider in the Streamlined Sales Tax program, Almond Cow could file across many states at once and save time and money in the process (something his previous stack never offered).
• Modern platform. TaxCloud felt like a significant step forward from the legacy tools Brett had been running for years.
• Cost savings. After five years of paying for a fragmented, unreliable stack, the economics of a single purpose-built platform were hard to ignore.

“It was just like, this is pretty obvious. There was a cost savings involved. There was modernity involved. This does sound a lot more efficient and just easier.”

Migrating and onboarding were handled through a dedicated point of contact at TaxCloud, giving Brett and his team direct support throughout the transition — a sharp contrast to TaxJar’s ticket system, which offered no clear resolution path and no direct contact.

“Simply having an email thread with an actual person that knows what they’re doing. It’s a huge improvement over whatever TaxJar was doing over there.”

SST enrollment consolidated multiple disconnected state-level filings into fewer, cleaner transactions, simplifying both compliance and the accounting process downstream.

“Having our SST filings come through as a single transaction really kind of helps simplify the accounting process too.”

Results

Less time on sales tax. More time on the business.

A year after switching, Brett’s relationship with sales tax has fundamentally changed.

• Time savings. Brett estimates he spends 70% less time thinking about sales tax compliance.
• Greater confidence. With TaxJar, rate accuracy and filing correctness were largely Brett’s responsibility to verify. With TaxCloud, that confidence comes built in.
• Fewer operational interruptions. The monthly filing issues that previously pulled Brett away from higher-value work have largely disappeared. No more manually resolving auto-file failures. No more tracking down missed states.
• Better financial visibility. A compliance dashboard now gives Brett clear sight lines into upcoming payment obligations (something his previous stack never provided). The nexus threshold monitor adds another layer of early-warning visibility.

“Having a much clearer idea of what the upcoming payments are gonna be is pretty helpful. Everything is all in one place. Sales tax just isn’t a hassle anymore.”

Looking ahead

Streamlining everything. Including compliance.

Almond Cow is focused on operational efficiency heading into the next year. Tightening costs, streamlining processes, and navigating a shifting consumer landscape. Switching to TaxCloud fits directly into that strategy.

“The story over the last year has been cutting costs on tons of software. And this move is actually part of that.”

For Brett, the switch also carries a broader message for any ecommerce founder who hasn’t revisited their compliance stack recently — switching to a better sales tax provider is a lot easier than you think.

“Tax compliance has evolved a lot in the last five, ten years. If you haven’t optimized that part of your stack, it’s an easy potential win and certainly worth the low effort that it was to transition.”